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My first season in charge was a fairly interesting one. Some good pre-season form had me in high confidence that we'd be able to perform well in our first season and initially we didn't dissapoint.

An early run of good form saw us sitting top of the table after about 5 games before some more mediocre performances saw us slip back into mid-table which is where our trouble began. Plummeting morale saw us set the record for the longest run without a win which stretched to about 7 or 8 games from memory and we suddenly found ourselves sitting in 10th out of 12 teams.

The inspired signing of Michale Keane, who was released by Manchester United's youth team, saw us start to revive our performances. Funnily enough morale started working in our favour as we went on to set the record for the longest undefeated streak for the league. On the back of this remarkable turnaround we managed to climb up to 5th before settling for an eventual 6th place finish.

All in all not a bad season with Keane and McMahon being the standouts. Despite being a right back Keane managed to lift our form and at only 19 years old he looks like the star of the team that hopefully we can hold onto. I expected Sheppard to be my main striker but McMahon constantly proved himself to be more up to the task, scoring goals when we needed them most.

At the moment i'm struggling to find enough quality in the transfer market so around 5th or 6th may be my only realistic aim for next season.

Lots of people doing this in the british islands it seems... although it's definitely a bigger challenge in terms of european football, I don't really find it as attractive as starting in a half-decent championship and having a few other solid teams to play domestically - and possibly dragging them up as you find success in Europe and increase league reputation.

Any of you got to experience this side-effect and affected any of your irish/welsh/northern irish opponents to become half-decent sides?

I've managed to get Dunloy into the Northern Irish Premier Division and to turn Professional, but rather than encouraging the other Northern Irish teams to perform, it has lead to the only other professional side, Linfield (who has previously dominated the league) to revert back to semi-professional and now flirting with relegation - possibly something to do with me stealing their best players?

Still, my performances in Europe ensure the league keeps climbing up the rankings (now the 157th best comp in Europe, and Northern Ireland has moved up to 25 / 52 in National coefficient), so I'll keep doing whatever I need to do to improve my squad, even if it is at the expense of the other clubs in the league!

League / Domestic Cups: After wining back the league last season I was fairly happy with the squad, but still managed to sign up 15 new players this season (again mostly free rejects from EPL clubs, although I did spend $950k), and the new players wasted no time getting to work, dominating the league - it wasn't until February that I lost my first game, and only lost 2 for the whole season!

As far as the domestic cups went, I took home the All-Ireland Cup, Irish Cup and Co-An Shield, but this year missed out on the League Cup, meaning I still haven't managed the clean sweep, despite dominating the league this season - surely I can manage it next season?

Europe: After being in the Europa League last season I was back where I needed to be this season, the Champions League, and again had to navigate the Qualifying Rounds before I got to the real thing:

The qualifiers were surprisingly easy, but then the group stages came, and it wasn't so good... drawn against Man City, Galatasaray and OM - would struggle to get a point.

I lost convincingly against Man City and OM, both home and away, but surprisingly managed a 3-3 away draw against Galatasaray, and then a stunning 2-1 home victory which was enough to see me finish 3rd - not enough to progrss in the Champions League, but enough to go through to the Europa Leauge!

In the Europa League 1st Knockout Round I was up against Italian side Sampdoria. The home leg saw Dunloy walk away with a surprising 1-0 win against the odds, however the away leg saw a much more deserving 1-4 loss, and knocked out of Europe. Still managing to not come last in the Champions League group stage was a new best for Dunloy, so hopefully I can improve on it next season!

Star Players / Team Summary
As per previous seasons the fan's Player of the Season was again debutant English striker, this time 21 year old Jonathan Gibbs from Blackburn

Jonathan Gibbs: As per previous fan's players of the year, he has average technical and mental attributes, but pretty good physical stats, and this led to a record breaking 31 goals, 5 assists and 7 MoM in 48 games at 7.39 - pretty good fr a 21 year old!

Another milestone, I have finally had my first 2 international players, however they are both playing for the Northern Ireland team, and given they are not regulars in the Dunloy team, that says how bad the Northern Ireland team is rather than how go those two players are. Of my starting lineup, they are now all English, and I only have 4 non-English players in my entire senior squad!

Finances wise, another group stage apperance in Europe has lead to a $10m profit, despite spending quite a bit improving the facilities some more, as well as paying a substantial dividend - things are looking good finaces wise, let's see how long it takes to improve my facilities to world class.

Churchill United are a semi-professional club, previously playing in the Northern Irish North West Division before there promotion up to the Second Division in 2011. They have no known founding date, with many people believing it was in the early 1900’s, but there are no records to prove exactly. They only have a Northern Irish Intermediate Cup victory in 1920 to show from their history, with a runner’s up position in the Northern Irish Craig Memorial Cup in 2010 meaning a barren spell without a trophy for 91 years.
The team are based in Londonderry, playing at Wilton Park and have an obscure reputation. There only rivals are Newbuildings, and their finances are said to be of an ok nature. The Chairman, James McMullan has been at the club for a few years, and is currently happy to stay. Churchill United play in a blue home kit, and play in white away. The team is pretty useless, and are predicted to go straight back down. Major changes will be needed for them to stay up.

I will be taking part in Gundo’s European Adventure, so have picked a team in the Northern Irish Second Division and who were previously unplayable. If anyone knows any information about Churchill United it will be greatly appreciated as I cannot find anything about them!

Obviously my main aims for this challenge will be to establish Churchill United as the best team in Northern Ireland and win the Champions League, but I also want the Northern Irish league to be the best in the world, and I’m hoping to study the changes in finances and prize money as I go through the years.

3rd bad season in a row, very hard to find good players for this league but at least I'm not getting relegated. Finances doing very well which is a good thing. Better update coming up next I swear Anyway here's the League Table.

So yes, it's a small improvement but still better than finishing 11th again. I was thinking our problem was that I kept trying too many tactics, so I stuck to a 4-3-3 because we had 4 very good strikers. Had a good few results and ended up drawing more than we lost, so a gradual improvement which we can hopefully build on. Really not a fan of splitting the league in half but oh well.

TransfersYes spending money, Bala have class players though Cups:Welsh Cup (Won 2-0 vs Aberystwyth in the final)
Done fantastic in this competition, but was so annoying to see us beat teams in this that we couldn't win against in the league. Gets us into Europe which is fantastic. Lost in the final last year too so was good to go one better.

Loosemores League Cup (Lost 1-0 to Neath in the final)
Lost in the final of this last year too, this competition really doesn't mean anything to me though.

Key Players:Harry Kane - What a player for this level, should be a big player for me in years to come.Liam Cooke - Has the potential to play even better but gets a few injuries.Noel McCarthy - Good player but he has the odd stupid sending off.Fraser Franks - My staff wanted me to start another CB ahead of him but I hated him, kept giving away penalties, Fraser is a much better choice.Danny Thomas - Does well in midfield, for his rating.

Code:

Season League Position Notes2011/12 Welsh Premier League 11th Avoided relegation
2012/13 Welsh Premier League 11th 7 points better off
2013/14 Welsh Premier League 11th
2014/15 Welsh Premier League 10th Best finish to date, won Welsh Cup and qualified for Europa League

You can't put very attractive can you? it looks like arrogance. Put attractive... she'll see me.

Posts

8,018

AdamFitz - Like I said keep checking who the prem sides release, even check the bit where it shows the youth players released. Also have a look at the England U19's and U21's to see if you can persuade any to sign.

harry Kane looks class, I had him at Real Madrid on FM10 and he was pretty damn good.

This was season 2 in charge of Olimpija and after a rather encouraging second half of last years championship, I was looking for a little more stability. I did sign a few players but most of them I was planning to be backups. I couldn't afford to go wild in terms of signings anyway, since my wage budget was sliced in half and my club reputation is still poor - very few players decent enough to play for us actually want to play for us.

Obviously by this point I was getting excited with the idea of promotion, but had a feeling that we struck lucky in some games and that the 2nd half of the season calendar was going to be tougher. And it sure was. We had 3 consecutive away defeats, then a nice 5-1 win over Mosor promised to change things. Only for Dragovoljac to hammer us 6-2 and start another sequence of 3 defeats. We dropped to 6th and actually were closer in points to the relegation zone than the promotion playoff spot, thanks to an incredibly tight league table. But then we picked up pace again with a few late season wins and amazingly still had a remote mathematical chance to get that 2nd place coming into the last game. However the Lucko-Pomorac match was played one day early and a Lucko victory ended our dream. We ended up 4th.

Cup run

I was all smiles when the draw for the first cup match put us against Granicar Zulanja - my old team that I got relegated with! They had spent over 800K€ in new players, but apparently that wasn't enough to beat us as we scrapped a somewhat fortunate 2-1 away win. We then beat Vinogradar, and would go out in a crazy game against Pomorac thanks to an hugely frustrating 90th minute penalty winner. Better luck next time.

GK - Marko Sarlija - Still in excellent form, there was a game where the opponents had 7 clear cut chances yet could only score 1 goal. He just right about saved everything.

DR - Ivan Cosic - Slightly disappointing both as a right-back and as a midfielder. Lost the place to Brkanac for a while.

DL - Marcel Novko - Promising youngster who had been released on a free by Dinamo Zagreb. Fought for the place with Sedmak all year long.

DC - Toni Golem - Not fully convincing as I believe he's getting a tad old, but still a regular.

DC - Marin Con - Becoming slow and inconsistent. Still a valid option but we couldn't agree on a new contract for next year and I'm not too worried about that.

MC - Roko Mislov - My fav utility player, who remains incredibly consistent both as a midfielder and as a centre-back.

MC - David Dujanic - Snapped him from my old team Granicar and he was all year long a spark in the midfield.

AMR - Kruno Jambrusic - Hired him to be a backup for Sucic but he totally overacheived expectations even if I always had doubts on whether he should be a first team regular. Had an unforgetable game and hattrick in that crazy 5-4 win over Karlovac.

AML - Igor Acimovic - Had an injury and a patch of bad form in the beginning of the year, later would come back to the excellent level of performance he's shown for me in the past. Grabbed a few U21 caps for Serbia.

ST - Mate Sucic - Not quite the reliable goalscorer he was last year, but still had a good year. I played him mostly on the right but later found out he was also good as a target man.

ST - Zeljko Sablic - Was supposed to be Lisnic's new backup but turned out to be an absolute superstar. Top goalscorer not only of my team but of the league too - plus he had a whole lot of assists. Also won the league player of the year award, and was considered the league's best signing of the season. I couldn't have asked for more.

Next year

It's time for promotion. Not only because I'm getting bored of the 2.HNL, but also because that would give us some better financial stability. Thankfully the prize money here is pretty damn good, because without the 587K€ of prize money I just got, we would be in lots of debt (we're about 100K€ in the red). We need more income and that could only come through player sales or prize money, because nobody cares about watching our games.

Btw the main league's getting better already, it's now 27th in the rankings. And in other news, Granicar still didn't get promoted back and will keep on spending their millions in the 3rd division!

That doesn't sound good for me then, had about 1m when I asked them and nothing.

Did you insist on it? I often get knocked back on requests but when I say 'it is very important to me' or similar they normally agree - the only thing they still refuse on is the expansion of the 650 seater stadium (which given our average attendance is 200 is fair enough, but it would be handy for the European home games)

Nah you see Mark, they agree with me but we don't have enough funds yet, so I have no possible comeback. Also I just received this message, don't know how to feel about it, will it benefit me? I've built up the finances very well and I'm hoping they won't sack me. The best I can hope for would be facility upgrading.

Done deal, no investment planned.

EDIT: Also, can anyone recommend me the quickest way to upload a good few images?

We made a decent enough start with 3 wins from our first 4 games, but it all went downhill from there. We drew nearly every single game, due to a complete lack of goals and if it wasn’t for winning our last 3 games we would have been a lot closer to the 2 relegated teams.

Irish Cup – went out in the 2nd round to lower league opposition. Although cups aren’t my main priority this year it would have still been nice to at least won the first game in it against a team like this.

League Cup – went out in the first game again, this time to same level opposition but we had a weakened team out so we could focus fully on the league.

Intermediate Cup – after getting through the first round with a weakened team, getting knocked out in the 2nd round was quite a relief as this cup was the least of my worries

Transfers – got rid of every single player already here except 2 of the goalies and brought in a whole new squad on free transfers. I think we had the squad to do quite a bit better, but not even right at the end of the season were our team blending well together which didn’t help at all. Note, in the screenshot on transfers in it shows i can scroll down, but it only shows the total value spent. Which is Ł0!

Squad – unfortunately taken too late to get goals scored and stuff on here, but I can tell you our top goal scorer was Paul Kennedy with the huge total of 5! Craig Sheppard was our highest average rating with 6.95

Key Players – John Neill and Craig Sheppard. If it wasn’t for these two I’d of let a lot more goals in than I did, which is ultimately the thing that kept us up.

Finances – a huge loss, nearly double our turnover sending us firmly into the red. Once again taken a bit late but you can still see it in the last season column.

Oh and i forgot to mention in my update i won manager of the year despite finishing 6th and only winning one manager of the month award. They must have changed those awards in relation to reputation as it used to always go to the team that won the league. Anyone else found the same?

EDIT: Also, can anyone recommend me the quickest way to upload a good few images?

Alt+F9 to take a screenie in FM, then they show up in your Documents\Sports Interactive\FM11\screenshots folder. First go to FM and take all the screenies that you want, then go to Photobucket, upload, select all the screenies at once and it'll upload them all at once. Then you go to the album screen in Photobucket and you'll have the direct links of every screenie there.

Our best season yet by far, moved up the table by 7 places, and I think we could've done even better. A few new signings and we could challenge for the title. Really not a fan of splitting the league in half but I suppose they can't do much else with 12 teams.

SquadImproved a lot but still need some back-up, Badly in need of good back-up in defence and midfield especially.TransfersSome very very good signings there, English players are amazing compared to Welsh ones, pity really.Cups:Europa League (lost 2-1 on aggregate to FC Brussels)
Unfortunate, we went 1-0 up and I wasn't sure whether to try get a second goal or to preserve the lead, they went on to win 2-1 anyway.

Welsh Cup (lost on penalties 4-3 to Airbus in the 4th Round)
Poor compared to last year but made my schedule easier. Would've been nice to get into Europe via this again.

Loosemores League Cup (Lost1-0 to Llanelli in the 1st Round)
Same goes for this competition, is nice to do well in the cups but I didn't need it.

Best Eleven:Mark Statham- Finally he has a good season and I can agree with what my scouts say about him, didn't think much of him before.Matty Collins- Needed a right-back badly and got Matty not long before the season begun, experienced and a good player.Fraser Franks- Don't think he'll be a starter for much longer but he had a good season.Daniel Nixon- Great signing, scored a few from corners aswell.Noel McCarthy- Was the player I really wanted to replace but in nearly every match, I got the message 'McCarthy must be stopped', great season for him.Keiron Howard- A player I will probably try to replace, had a decent season.Craig Hunt- Solid season, hope he continues to play well.Danny Harris- Another good signing for us, will be playing this season again unless I can get a better replacement, which is unlikely Liam Cooke- Good goalscorer, not really rated by my scouts weirdly.Harry Kane- Our best player, his injuries are a nuisance though.Kelechi Ezekwe- Got off to a bad start now he's doing alright, wants to leave.

Code:

Season League Position Points Notes2011/12 Welsh Premier League 11th 30 Avoided relegation
2012/13 Welsh Premier League 11th 37 7 points better off
2013/14 Welsh Premier League 11th 30
2014/15 Welsh Premier League 10th 38 Best finish to date, won Welsh Cup and qualified for Europa League
2015/16 Welsh Premier League 3rd 53 Best finish to date

It was a case of same again, same points, same position. If anything it seemed worse as the team was incredibly inconsistant, winning well for a few games and then getting hammered for a few. The season wasn't helped by Palfi, Sunzu and Kovacs all injured for 3 months at the same time. Lost in the 1st Rd of the cup again this time to Gyirmot from the 2nd Division West

Signed Sunzu after being offered him and trialed and then signed a few tunisians halfway through the season.
My scouts have been looking in Eastern Europe for 2 years without finding a single player except in hungary which only took a day to scout and found no quality players.
My defence was quite strong except for left back, horvath was a rock in the centre. Still not enough goals from my strikers but more from the midfield this year.

Star Player - played only a few games last season as a back up and only came into the squad due to Sunzu's injury, ended up as my top scorer

The press conferences are really terrible. I get asked about resting key players after every other game when i havn't rested any.
After the 1st game of the season a question was asked about szentpeteri and how that was a collecters item since he doesn't score very often - apart from the 7 goals last season making him my top scorer

Every year I take a look through Sparta Prague’s squad and just wonder how the hell we will ever come close to beating them. They sign players for millions of pounds and their wage structure makes us look like an amateur club meaning that we can never compete for the same calibre of player. Sometimes they underachieve and we have beaten them, only for other teams to press home the advantage and knock us down. This year however, Sparta didn’t underachieve. But they were no match for us I am a smug *******.

League – We were top for much of the season but I never really felt comfortable as Sparta were constantly breathing down our necks and beat us when we played them in March. This only spurred us on and we lost just once more in the final 11 games to be crowned champions. For a second time we lost the cup final to Sparta in the penultimate game of the season which was the only blemish on a brilliant season for the club. And yet my name is still not featured on the favoured personnel, it looks like the fans will be hard to please.

Europe – Another exit in the 4th qualifying round, this time against Austria Wien. Having lost 2-0 in Vienna we turned it around at home and beat them 2-0 in the return only to miss out on penalties. Once again we can only imagine what could have been, but I have no regrets as it gave us a good rest in between each league game and probably helped us enormously in the long run.

Players – A great season by all. We smashed our transfer record and spent 575k on Belgian prospect Pereira who earns about 3k per week more than anyone else. Money well spent though and he performed admirably. My main two strikers were out for long periods, especially key man Tecl who broke a foot and has been out for several months so far and will miss the summer too. A more heart warming story is that of young Brazilian Joao, a youngster I first laid eyes on in 2015 for a loan spell and then snapped up for 65k a year later. Five years after his debut, he has made his first appearance for the Czech national team and is now worth Ł1.4 million. Brings a tear to the eye. His fellow Brazilian Edu arrives aged 18 in the summer and I have even higher hopes for him but if he can come anywhere close to my adopted child Joao then I will be thrilled.

Next season – In the last report I noted that we were 16th in the coefficients and needed to improve one place to get an additional Champions League qualification spot. By some fluke, we actually increased our ranking to 12th which is a massive step because it ensures that the league champions go directly into the group stage. It’ll be a huge incentive to follow up our success this year and snatch that lucrative spot so the club will be going all out to make sure this happens. The only downer is that we look likely to drop back down in the rankings the following year so it makes this next season all the more important to get the group stage spot whilst it’s available to us.

Not really much in the way of progress I suppose but I've got to be pleased with making it to the group stages of the Champions League again. Had quite a tough run in that we had to see off Austria Vienna before the playoff match with Wisla. yet again it was only 1 good result in the group stage: http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...006/bayern.jpg Quite a tough group for us with Juventus, Bayern and Rangers. league went down to the last day of the season and it just happened to be against Shamrock, we just about did it with a 1-0 win.

he really is fantastic, scored goal of the season against Bohemians by dribbling from his own area and firing in from the edge of the area. he wont sign a new deal though so I'm tempted to sell him, have already lost Buckle on a free transfer because he didn't want to stay.

No matter how many players I sign he is always our star man up front, another one who wont sign a new deal though so I may look at letting him go.

Summary

I had to sign and sell quite a lot this year and I may have to do the same again, it's just impossible to keep hold of the top players. I have some decisions to make with regards to players refusing to sign new deals.

will soon be to old to be playing this childish game. Soon - but not now.

Posts

1,305

Early times update

KRC Gent - Belgian 3rd division B - Early season update - 2011/12

This is turning out way better than I imagined. So far I have played 7 (3 cup, 4 League) competetive matches and I have won them all To top it all off the draw for the Belgian Cup 6th round revealed Club Brugge as my next opponent. 10 times winner of the Belgian Cup, one of the biggest clubs in Belgium and bitter rivals of my club. If every 6.000 tickets on this occasion is not sold - I will resign (perhaps).

Learned about belgian league rules as well. Apparently you need two under-21 players in the match squad. I didn't have 2 under-21 players at all To be able to fill out the bench I signed the first youngster I could find on a free transfer - a young striker, that started the next match due to injuries. Result 2 goals and 1 assist

Art of Drowing: Great win over Bayern! It's a shame that your top players all want to leave, but I guess these difficulties are part of the challenge... this is meant to be hard.

Blackmama: I have to deal with the same rule in Croatia, there needs to be 2 U21 players in the match squad, the best way I've found to manage this is to have U21 2nd and 3rd keepers, so 1 slot is always occupied by the keeper in the bench. Then you just have to find one U21 player that's actually good enough to play for you regularly - ideally 2 of them so that if one gets injured, you won't have to pull up someone from the youth team.

You can't put very attractive can you? it looks like arrogance. Put attractive... she'll see me.

Posts

8,018

Originally Posted by noikeee

Art of Drowing: Great win over Bayern! It's a shame that your top players all want to leave, but I guess these difficulties are part of the challenge... this is meant to be hard.

Blackmama: I have to deal with the same rule in Croatia, there needs to be 2 U21 players in the match squad, the best way I've found to manage this is to have U21 2nd and 3rd keepers, so 1 slot is always occupied by the keeper in the bench. Then you just have to find one U21 player that's actually good enough to play for you regularly - ideally 2 of them so that if one gets injured, you won't have to pull up someone from the youth team.

Thanks, it's a challenge I'm very much enjoying so I can't complain.

i wish I followed your example and stuck a keeper on the bench, my one got injured so a centre back is playing in goal. it's now half time and it wont let me continue, any ideas why?

Well it's taken 6 seasons but at long last we have won the league. Was a very, very close season as the table shows, really wasn't sure if I was going to win it or not as 3 other teams were challenging for it as well. Went 22 games without losing in all competitions during the season which was a fantastic thing to do, also won 7 of them in a row which is a new club record.

SquadThe starting eleven are fantastic but there isn't much back-up which is a problem, would rather push current starting players into being back-up while bringing better quality in.Transfers 2015/16 | 2016/17Showing the 2015/16 transfers as well because that seems to show most of my summer transfers, some great buys.Cups:Welsh Cup (beat Goytre 1-0in the final)
Had a tough run up until the semi-finals, where we played former Welsh Premier League team Bridgend, followed by Goytre in the final, was nice to win and at least if we didn't win the league we would've went into Europe, but thankfully it didn't come to that.

Loosemores League Cup (Lost2-1in the Quarter Finals)
Beaten by Bangor City but we should've won because we dominated, they went on to win it.

Best Eleven:10 out of 11 players are English, shows the quality difference.

Mark Statham- Becoming consistent now which is great.Craig Stewart- One player who wouldn't sign for me beforehand but was delighted when he did.Daniel Nixon - Scores vital goals from corners and is a great defender.Alex Bell- Nowhere near as good as Nixon but hoping he improves.Nick Reed- Took McCarthy's place and done it well.Danny Harris- Solid, all 3 midfielders were.Matty Collins- Same as above, Craig Hunt probably would've played but he was plagued by injuries.David O'Sullivan - Our most attacking minded midfielder, had a great season, solid as well.
Marcus Tudgay- He's getting on but hopefully he has another season or 2 in him.Harry Kane- Still the star, said he wants to move to a bigger club but he's staying here until at least 2022, whether he likes it or not!Kelechi Ezekwe- Decent enough season.

The Art of Drowning did you get a decent amount of money from the All Ireland Cup (Setanta Cup). I won it a couple of times before getting in to Europe and the money came in really handy. I have had that thing about not being able to continue after looking at players profiles. I never tried space bar but the back button sorted it out for me.

Welcome to the challenge Blackmama. That is a very impressive start you have made there.

You can't put very attractive can you? it looks like arrogance. Put attractive... she'll see me.

Posts

8,018

Originally Posted by Oxslow

Well done Tomaldinho.

The Art of Drowning did you get a decent amount of money from the All Ireland Cup (Setanta Cup). I won it a couple of times before getting in to Europe and the money came in really handy. I have had that thing about not being able to continue after looking at players profiles. I never tried space bar but the back button sorted it out for me.

Welcome to the challenge Blackmama. That is a very impressive start you have made there.

Some real imorivement over the last couple of seasons AdamFitz.

yeah good amount of money, something like Ł300k for taking part and another Ł500k for winning but I can't really remember, just lost in the final of it this year. Europe and friendly leagues have sorted us financially tbh.

Well done AdamFitz, I knew once better players were more willing to sign then you'd make progress.

It was a bit of an up and down season. We started off brilliantly, not being outside the top 3 for the first seven games, but then my problem from last year came back again. We couldn’t score at all. During the middle of the season I had a period of 9 games where I only scored 1 goal. That 1 goal won me a game, and I lost only one of those 9 games, having 7 0-0 draws! It was another disappointing season to say the least.

Irish Cup – Another season where I wasn’t bothered about the cups and wanted to fully concentrate on the league, even though that plan didn’t work!

League Cup – Same as the Irish Cup, I wasn’t too bothered by it, although I did manage to cause an upset in the 1st round, knocking out Division 1 side Newry on penalties, before losing in the 2nd round to Premiership side Dungannon

Intermediate Cup – The only competition I actually went for due to us having a chance of winning it ended up badly, getting knocked out in the 2nd round to Portstewart.

Transfers – A lot less hectic than last year, with only 8 people signing for us, and 3 of those were at the end of the season when we were planning for next year. I thought our team understanding would be a lot better this year because of it but it proved not to be as it still took ages for them to gel. Near the end of the season I only realised I could do team blend in match preparation… That’s probably why it took so long. Whoops!

Squad – Here you can see our goal scoring problems. Once again we were unable to get one player to score more than 5 goals!

Key Players – With no one scoring over 5 goals again, the main players were my defenders. The two full backs, Ryan Sharkey and John Neill, averaged 7.01 and 6.96 respectively.

Finances – Another season with heavy losses. This year was not as bad as last year, due to fund raising significantly increasing which has helped us out a lot. I need to get out of this division quick otherwise my finances might cause a few problems.

My aims for next year are to make quite big changes to the team as we can’t seem to score goals. I’ve got a new tactics and hopefully with the right players I’ll be scoring a lot more. Promotion challenge a minimum

I've barely played my save since I won the league but I can't bring myself back to it, I believe in my heart of hearts that I have taken the team as far as they will go but I am determined to defeat this challenge before the second patch

Good stuff Bazza, enjoyed your update. You made better progress in every competition so do not be downheartened that you aren't moving forward as much as you may like.

Welcome to William Hall and good luck. Oh and thank you to noikeee and Oxslow for your kind words.

Eerste Divisie (sacked after 30 games)
I'm embarassed about this relegation. This is the first time I have been relegated or sacked in FM11 but VV Bennekom were the worst team I've managed so far in FM in comparison with the strength of the league.Dutch Cup
Meh

Complete dominance domestically here and we probably would have gone the whole season undefeated if I didn't start playing all the kids towards the end,. Won the league with 8 games to spare. In Europe it was the same old story, we were very convincing in reaching the group stages but then only managed 2 points from a group of Rubin, Benfica and Lyon. All of them were close games though.

irish league player of the year and he really stepped up a gear in his 3rd season with the club.

Summary

Yet again it was fairly big movement in the transfer windows as a lot of players wouldn't sign new deals, think it's going to be the way it is for the rest of the game to be honest. Nearly all our squad is wanted and most of them want to move.

We've done it again, much easier though this time as we were top of the league for the majority of the season. Now I hope that we can dominate the league and that I don't have to pay much attention to it, so we can focus on Europe. Player's performances weren't as good as they were last year but we still managed to win it with 3 points more than the previous year.SquadDidn't make too much changes to the starting 11 really, Alex Bell got replaced by Reuben Derbyshire and Sashi Chalwe and Craig Hunt featured more regularly than last year. Better back-up now.TransfersBest signing by far was Chalwe, Derbyshire was good as well, others are currently back-up.Cups:Champions League (lost 4-1on aggregate to MSK Zilina in the 3rd Qualifying Round)
Zilina were way too good for us, but in the round before, we were fantastic. Lost 1-0 away to Sturm Graz after a bizarre goal, but in the return leg we recorded what I think is the best result in the club's history.

Europa League (lost 3-1on aggregate to FC Twente in the 4th Qualifying Round)
We were never going to win it but it's a respectful result to me.

Welsh Cup (lost 2-0to Bangor City in the Final)
Would've been nice to win but oh well, Bangor seem to be something of a bogey team for me.

Loosemores League Cup (Lost4-2on aggregate to Airbus in the Semi Finals)
Very disappointing loss for a tournament I still haven't won, maybe next year.

Best Eleven:No Welsh players left in the first 11, there's basically no good Welsh players about, and I still can't upgrade my bloody youth facilities.Mark Statham- Another good season for him.Craig Stewart- Fantastic player, won Young Player of the Year.Daniel Nixon- Another good season for him.Reuben Derbyshire- I think Chalwe will take his spot for the time being.Nick Reed- Don't know if him or Chris Ferguson will start next year, of if I'll sign someone new.Danny Harris- Good, but not as good as last year.Craig Hunt- Played ahead of Matty Collins as he wasn't injured as much, still got a couple of them though.David O'Sullivan- Decent season.Marcus Tudgay- Probably doesn't have long to go in the first team.Harry Kane- Still banging them in.Kelechi Ezekwe- Won't sign a new contract so will be gone in 2020.

Pushing for promotion we made a few signings meant to add something to the squad, although not necessarily for the positions we needed the most. The board allowed me to scout for all Europe after a few rounds of annoying them, however my most exciting signing was coming from Africa, a tanzanian winger called Mrisho Ngassa who had been offered by an agent. With all of this I was pretty confident promotion was possible.

First half of the championship

I actually won the opening game this time, but the team had a bit of an inconsistent start, we'd win at home easily but struggle badly away. Then we hit a patch of good form (highlight being this nice 5-3 game versus Slaven Belupo), and recovered all the way up to 2nd. However just before the break we had to face the two sides that we were fighting with - Dugopolje and Lokomotiva - and lost to both. That put us 5 points below our goal of 2nd place and the dream of promotion was starting to fade away from us.

Second half of the championship

Things could not get any better for us in February as we started a series of 8 games without a defeat. Luckily Dugopolje dropped some points and that allowed us climb back to 2nd, however we had dragged Junak and Croatia Sesvete along with us and it was a 4-team battle for the playoff spot. Then we slipped with two defeats and that gave Junak a 2 point advantage coming into the final 3 matches. Unfortunately we had a very tough calendar to end up the year, and we were totally humiliated at Dugopolje with a 5-0 defeat that killed our chances. Then another 2-0 defeat to Lokomotiva (who totally dominated the league) did it mathematically. We ended up 4th, same place as last year, but with 2 more points than last year. Does that count as progress?

Cup run

We were paired with minnows Zminj in the first round and predictably hammered them 4-1. Then we had a bit of a funny draw, putting us against the giants Dinamo Zagreb at home. The attendance record at our stadium was broken with a total of 2447 spectators, to watch us lose 3-0 in a game where Dinamo was obviously better but not as much as the scoreline might suggest.

GK - Marko Sarlija - Another good season from the veteran goalie, although the numbers show a slightly worse performance than last year. He did seem strangely passive in a few of the goals he conceded.

DR - Ivan Cosic - Decent year, but he's getting slow and he doesn't want to sign a new contract on the terms I'm offering. I'm worried because I don't have a better alternative.

DC - Roko Mislov - This time played exclusively as a centre-back and was as reliable as ever. Youngster Vladic Vasic is starting to put a fight for this place, though.

DC - Ivan Buljubasic - Great signing for this season, always a threat on attacking corners.

DL - Mirko Kramaric - Another new signing. Was perhaps the weakest link in defence, but has attracted the interest of a few clubs.

MC - Tomislav Jonjic - This reliable veteran arrived in November and gained the place over the cameroonian Tabi, who was also new to the club and of the same age.

MC - Stjepan Poljak - His arrival made me drop Dujanic to the bench and I never regretted it, which is a proof of his quality.

AMR - Mrisho Ngassa - Did well and scored quite often, but I had very big expectations for him and I'm not sure he matched them.

AML - Igor Acimovic - As good as ever, although would sometimes drop to very poor morale for no reason. Unlucky to break a foot at the most important part of the season, maybe that's what cost us promotion?

SC - Bosko Stupic - Possibly his best season so far at the club, but I still think he misses far too many chances. The team does seems to play better with him there, but it's such a frustrating position, I've got loads of forwards and none seem to perform next to Sablic.

SC - Zeljko Sablic - As deadly as last year, 20 goals scored. Which is puzzling because I don't understand what makes him so good from his attributes. And I better figure it out quick as he's getting old.

Now what?

Well I don't know. It's very frustrating to not see the club progress, though I guess it's better than to see it regress. I'm aiming for promotion again, of course, but the squad's getting old and I'm having big problems finding players that would be a tangible improvement over what we have. I did sign a few promising youngsters during the course of this season, but they're not ready yet.

At least the club reputation and value seems to be slowly increasing. And we're not leaking any more money than at this point last year.

League / Domestic Cups: After only losing 2 games last season, my goal was to go undefeated this season, and whilst it was quite an ambitious goal, I managed to pull it off, with 28 wins and 10 draws, setting a league record 94 points - too easy!

I am getting used to these qualifying rounds now, and this year was a great confidence builder, scoring 20 goals and only conceeding 3! And the group stage, whilst not easy, could have been worse, with Dunloy drawn against Real Madrid, Stuttgart and Zenit - could this be the first time I make it to the knockout stage?

Unfortunatly, my first to games were heavy losses to Real Madrid and Stuttgart, however I then managed a lucky 1-1 away drawn against Zenit, followed by a fantastic 6-0 home win! I then came back to reality with a 2-0 away loss against Real Madrid, and ended with a 1-1 draw against Stuttgart - whilst not enough for a top 2 place, it was enough for 3rd place and a shot at the Europa League - I'll take that!

2018 Champions League Group Stage

The Europa League knockout round saw Dunloy up against HSV, and the home leg started horribly, 0-3 down after 16 minutes, however Dunloy then pulled off a massive comeback, and managed to come away with a 5-3 win - amazing! Unfortunatly Dunloy was completely dominated in the away leg, and were lucky to walk away with a 0-3 loss inthe 2nd leg, and a 5-6 aggregate loss - so close yet so far! Still, I can feel the side getting better and I feel reaching the quarter finals of the Europa League (or knockout round of the CL) isn't too far away (winning the CL however, is still a long way away!)

Team Summary / Star Players

Whilst my team dominated the league last season, I still needed to strengthen the team for my European adventures, and I managed to bring in 17 new players at a total spend of $4.5M. This resulted in Dunloy taking out the 3 Northern Ireland players of the year, and 2 of the 3 young players of the year - all of which were new signing! Of all the star players, the pick of the players were:

Mike Kelly - Whilst he didn't manage to get into the top 3 N.I. players, he did pick up the Fan's Player of the year, and in his 3rd season at Dunloy, the ex-Man City defender is really starting to shine, and managed 51 games at 7.36, including 12 goals! At 25 years of age he is one of the more experienced players, but still many years of quality football to come!

Jamie Newell - Of all the new signings, he was probably the standout, and like several of the signings this season, he was poached from rival Linfield for $425k (originally from Aston Villa), and the right winger had a great season. Whilst he only managed 10 goals in 45 games, he also had an amazing 21 assists and average rating of 7.26, and was named the Premier Division player of the season

Finances: Once again, making the group stages of the CL ensured I made a nice profit, despite spending $4M on transfers and $10M on facilities upgrades (although they are still listed as average), and the closing bank balance is now just over $24M - still trying (without luck) to increase my 625 seater stadium!

Noikeee, i know the feeling with not making progress i'm the same. Looking at the table and your players i reckon you need to improve the goalie and defence, they don't seem to be up to the same standard as your midfield and attack.

Marky Mark! Looks like you are beginning to make progress in europe, you are probably only a few players away from qualifying from the CL group stages.

EredivisiePlayoffs
I'm quite happy that we've stayed up for another season in the Eredivisie. Hopefully we can build on this and start to climb up the table.Dutch Cup
The only highlight in the Cup was that PSV's reserves won it.

Eredivisie
A great season for the club as we finished in 11th.Dutch Cup
A great cup run while we reached the Semi Final.New Stadium
The board have also decided to replace our outdated 3159 seater stadium to move into a state-of-the-art 20750 seater stadium. Brilliant.

Noikeee, i know the feeling with not making progress i'm the same. Looking at the table and your players i reckon you need to improve the goalie and defence, they don't seem to be up to the same standard as your midfield and attack.

Strangely I approached it the other way around, I improved the attack and so far it's working better as I'm leading the league! My tactic is very attacking, it's normal to concede lots of goals - couldn't find any decent defenders to sign anyway.

William Hall: Even with commentary only, it seems like you're playing 2 seasons per day! Have you thought about taking a break and going outside? Nice progress though.

Our first season in Austria went quite well. A 5th place made sure we were far away from both relegation- and promotionbattle. We had some streaks of both wins and losses, but in the end we had a good season. I'm quite surprised of the quality of some of the players willing to go to Leoben, but I'm not complaining when names like Steve Marlet, formerly of Fulham among others, joined me. Granted, he is 38 and playes like carp, but still it's a nice name. Unfortunatly, I didn't know what the rules were in this division when it come to non-austrians. I'm only allowed three in each match squad and I need 3 austrian youngsters under 21 aswell. That ment I couldnt play our best players at the same time, and had to have some carp youngsters on the bench at all times. This has promted me to search after talented austrians, but there's not many gread ones willing to come to Leoben. Our main problem, however, is financially. We lost more than Ł850k this season and are steady in the red without any looks of getting in some cash. The chairman is now looking to get out and I've gotten news of a possible takeover by a local businessman. Mattersburg in my division were taken over by a Saudi tychoon and are looking at serious cash injections and facility upgrades, why can't stuff like that ever happen to me?

We went out in the Austrian Cup in the second round to a lower division team, 'nuff said.

This seasons first 11:

GK: Yordan Gospodinov - Our bulgarian veteran goalkeeper has been stable all season and should hold another season or two.
DR: Stefan Kulovits - Has been solid all season and done his job well.
DL: Christoph Cemernjak - Has done ok, but nothing more. A position I'm looking to strenghten.
DC: Pablo Chinchilla - The Costa Rican(?) has been the rock of the defence this season. He has also gotten austrian citizenship during the season so he doesn't count as a foreigner any more.
DC: Ione - Started of outside the squad, but when Chinchilla got citizenship he took up the place alongside him.
DM: Phillipp Netzer - Played good, and top austrian teams are looking at him all the time. Hope I can keep hold of him.
DM: Bernhard Schachner - Not played great, and need to step up to keep his place. Another part I wish to strenghten.
AMC: Alberto Quintero - Great season by our panamanian(?) international. He scored quite a bit and provided about the same amount.
AMR: Emin Sulimani - Played much better than he got credit for in my oppinion, so he keeps his place for next season.
AML: Alexander Sala - Started as a sub, but fought his way into the team. Still, it seems he plays better as a sub than a starter.
SC: Joachim Parapatits - The real star this season with all his goals. Also became topscorer in the league. He is aging a bit, but should keep his skills next season at least.

After struggling to find any quality in the transfer market pre-season it seemed like we were doomed to finish in a similar position to last season. However, with more consistency throughout our league games we managed a brilliant 2nd place before gaining promotion via the playoffs.

Once again McMahon was the biggest hero, after bringing in another dtriker in Gavin Falconer I expected McMahon to occupy the bench more often than not but a long term injury to Falconer and some irresistable performances by McMahon forced Falconer to take a back seat. Whenever we were in desperate need of a goal McMahon was always popping up, a truly brilliant poacher at this level regardless of what my coaches say.

Our pleas for a new goalkeeper were answered mid-season when a young english player, by the name of Bradshaw, recently released by Tottenham joined the club. Not too many outstanding performances from Bradshaw to date but certainly a reliable goalkeeper with potential to fill. Lets see how he handles the Premier Division next season.

Having a crack in Slovenia, first season is going quite well but I don't think I'll post anything until I've really established myself (and an interest in this save). I'm playing with Nogometni Klub Krka Novo Mesto (Krka for short). Slovenian names crack me up, half of them look like the result of a hyperactive 6 year old bashing on a keyboard.

I didn't come in too confident into the year. We did not move much in the transfer market, bringing in mainly promising youngsters. The only new players expected to feature in the first team were striker Josip Fucek and defender Ivica Zunic - as it's getting increasily harder for me to find free transfers that can improve our team. I say free transfers as we still have 0 to spend on players, obviously.

First half of the championship

I decided to use a slight tactical variation this year, using another advanced forward next to Sablic (instead of a target man) and this would pay off. Not in the opening game, which we drew 3-3 with HASK, but we soon got into a run of wins and into first place, grabbing a record 7-0 win over newly-relegated Lipik in the process. We did get more inconsistent later on with the occasional draw and defeat, but held on to a constant fight for the 3 top places with Dugopolje and Junak and would go into the break in 3rd just barely behind them.

Second half of the championship

4 consecutive wins kicked off the campaign past the winter, yet this was not enough to recover 1st place, showing how incredibly high the standard was this year. At a point the top 3 teams all slipped together and I briefly occupied 1st again. However a defeat to our promotion-battle rivals Junak put us back, then a few games later we lost to Dugopolje too - ruining any possible direct confrontation if we'd end on equal points. With 2 games to go Dugopolje and Junak were leading, we were 1 point behind. With 1st place giving straight promotion, 2nd giving a play-off spot and 3rd giving nothing, this was set for an epic finish. We all won the penultimate match and the scenario stayed the same for the finale. Dugopolje had their final game earlier and they won, so if we were going to get a playoff spot Junak had to slip. And while we did our part winning over Jadran, Junak were losing 1-0. Until they scored in the 81st, scored in the 83rd and we had missed promotion yet again. By 1 single f**king point.

Cup run

We had an amusing 7-0 away win over Marsonia to start with, breaking the club's biggest ever win record (it would be matched two weeks later in the championship against Lipik). In the next round top division side Cibalia were coming over to our stadium and they scored every chance they had, beating us 3-0.

ST - Andrija Jukic - Had already done a cameo 3 appearances at the end of last year, but I made him a first-team starter and he totally delivered with 14 goals and 8 assists. Having him instead of a target man was a major reason of why we were better this season.

ST - Zeljko Sablic - Still our biggest star, grabbed 20 goals and was unplayable for a while but I think his advanced age started affecting him later on the year.

Are we stuck here forever?

Feels like it, as this challenge is proving to be even harder than I expected. We have a wonderful squad for this level, we improved our tactics, we were in the playoff 10 minutes from the end of the season, and it still wasn't good enough. Moreover we're now 200K in the red. I seriously don't know what am I supposed to change, so I'll stick to these players and keep on developing the impressive bunch of youngsters I've signed meanwhile - it's already paying off as the centre-back Vasic had a great season as a first teamer.

Eredivisie
An absolutely brilliant season where we finished in 4th place.Dutch Cup
Considering last season's performance I expected better.Europa League
I am quite happy with our first season in the Europa League where we reached the 2nd Knockout Round.

I am overjoyed with our season to be honest. Great results in both Eredivisie and Europa League football.

Transfers: Signed some free players and a left wing from a team in the league. Also, centerback Jaime Vasquez joined us from Olimpia.

- We basically cruised through the league to win our fifth consecutive Welsh Premier! We were the most scoring, less goals allowed team, and broke our own record of most points in one season to get 82 digits out of a possible 96. Not too shabby.

Loosemores Cup
- Went past Aberyswyth, TNS, Neath Athletic and Cwmbran in the final to win the trophy, for the third time since I got here, and for the second consecutive time.

Welsh Cup
- After winning it last year, we also had a great cup run this season. Beat a couple of lower league teams in the first rounds, to then trash Goytre 3-0 in the quarterfinals. Barry Town put up a fight but lost on overtime 2-1 against us, and in the final, we fell to Lanelli, our rivals, 2-1, even though we doubled them on shots and shots on goal, and we had 65% of the ball. The first loss in three months would be in the cup final. Oh well.

Champions League

- We had BATE Borisov for the second time in three years in the first CL round. We won at home 1-0, and went on to lose 3-1 away, even though we had the same number of opportunities, and more of the ball...and missed a penalty. Meh.

In other news

Stats

- Angeli is now the highest league scorer for the club, with 90 in 143 games...at age 24. At his pace, the Cyprus U-21 international born in Manchester will set a record that will be very hard to beat. Team stats.

- My Premier win put me over Llanelli's Andy Legg...but losing the Cup final to them put him back on top. This is now personal. I do have six leagues (he has three) and more total cups between Loosemore and Welsh (4 to 3) than him, and 30 month and year manager awards (for 23 of Legg's). So I am technically better, and next year I will be in terms of numbers, too!

- Nathan Collins was top scorer at age 19, with 22 goals overall, 17 on league. This guy has 32 league goals in 60 games so far in two years. I smile every time I think Llanelli had him on trial and decided to let him go

- A slight difference probably caused by rep change was the cool 88k we got for finishing Wales Cup finalists. The Champions got 144k. Waaay more than when we started.

- Senegal international RW Niang got young player of the year, for the fourth year running it went to Afan Lido. We didn't get best player of the yar for the first time in three seasons, though. I got manager of the year, and six players were in the year's best team.

- Season passes - 33, same than last year. Dear God.
- Attendance - 157 in average, 3 less than last year.
- Club's value - Ł2m - Same than last year
- Sponsorship...we signed a new deal for 6 years, earning Ł50k. Very different from the Ł6k we were getting.
- Match/Season ticket - Ł10.10/Ł82.80 - Ł+3/12 more than last year...nice!
- The league is...39 up to 138th; we are officially a 1 and 1/2 star league!!!
- The club is now 270th, 43 up. Looking good.

- Aims for next season:
1. To win our sixth league in a row and pass Mr. Legg as best manager in the history of the Welsh league already!
2. Get through one CL round, something we have not done in three years.
3. The board still will not improve our youth facilities even though we have around Ł2,5m in the bank; so we'll try to insist on that once more.

Tobyl Kostanal, from Kazajstan, is the CL rival. All greys. We'll see.

Edit: We crashed them with an aggregate score of 3-9. Awesome. Now, Bulgarian Litex awaits.

The good thing is, if we lose we go onto the next Euro Cup round. so we have at least four more European games to enjoy!

Litex just trashed Legia Varsovia, they lost 2-1 away but won the second leg 6-2...we have to be really careful not to get humiliated here (neither of these teams are gray).

Edit 2: Wow, what a game. Just beat Litex 4-2 at home...with two goals by Christos Angeli, and two own goals by the same Bulgarian defender.

Then, in the 85th minute, my gk gets injured and Angelis ends up on goal...to keep the goal clear for the end of the game. Awesome, whatever happens in the second leg this was a great result. On the other hand, my starting GK will miss a month and I'll have to go to Lovech with the South African replacement for Bridges.

Edit 3: Holy crap! After seeing the last 6-2 home result for Litex, we were scared of getting there with just a two goal lead, but we held it! We tied 2-2 at Bulgaria and we go onto the next stage! Best CL result so far, we'll see where we get!

So the next and last rival before the group stage (which would be an amazing dream) is FC Copenhague. They have not even lost a game in all the CL rounds until now, so it is going to be very hard. And we play the first game home. And we have a league game three days before the first league, and before the second leg as well. Yikes.

Lost miserably, aggregate of 7-1. Oh well.

On the other hand, the Ł2,3m from the CL run makes a total of Ł4.4m at the bank, so the board finally accepted to better the youth facilities so that the players coming up the ladder will actually now how to use a football. Great.

Edit2: HOLY CRAP, ARE YOU KIDDING ME??? we are in the freaking group stages of the Euro Cup!!!! Oh my God. Wow. It did not say anything on the rules of the round!!!

Wo-hoooo!!!!

Our Euro group stage:

Olympiakos
Vitesse
Villarreal
Afan Lido

I am SO HAPPY right now. I got my hometown team (Villarreal) in the group! Wow. WOW!!! This can only be awesome for the league and the coefficients, the reputations...great!!!

Edit 455,656,555: We just won our first Euro Cup game!!!! Afan Lido's historic group stage debut was a thrilling 3-2 win over Vitesse at home, with two goals by Christos Angeli. He will miss the game at Vila-real due to yellow cards accumulation, but we still want him to travel with us.

PS: I have a question for the Afan Lido managers; every game in Europe, it says the attendance was 550; at first I thought it was a bug in the game, and in every European game the attendance just "happened" to be 550 (since the total capacity is 5,500)...but I just saw that in the stadium's capacity, it says 5,500(550 seats). Could this be related to that 550 that keeps showing up? Is the data not showing total attendance simply because they did not have a seat??

League / Domestic Cups: I didn't have much room to improve from last season, where I went undefeated with 28 wins and 10 draws, but I did manage to improve, with 32 wins and 6 draws this season, resulting in an extra 8 points and an extra +20 GD.

In terms of the domestic cups I finally managed the clean sweep of the All-Ireland Cup, Irish Cup, League Cup and Co-An Shield. In adition, the reserve side took out the Intermediate Cup, and just missed out in the Steel & Sons Cup Final.

As per last season, I managed to score an impressive 20 goals in 6 qualifying games, although did also conceed 7.

The group stage saw Dunloy seeded 3rd for the first time, however we were drawn in a very tough group against Barcelona, Chelsea and FK Austria Wien. To have any chance of progressing from this group (for the first time ever) I would need good results against Austria Wien, and then hope for the best against the others.

Things started very badly, with a 0-1 away loss to Austria Wien, but then I went on a great run that involved a shock home win against Barcelona, 1-1 away draw to Chelsea, 1-0 home win to Chelsea, and a 2-0 home win against Autria Wien - which saw me qualify to the next round of the CL with one game to spare (which was a 0-3 away loss to Barcelona). Whilst I was somewhat lucky to get wins against Chelsea and Barcelona, it shows that the team is finally progressing, and there may be some light at the end of the very long tunnel.

After my impressive Europe campainge, as well as the previous seasons, Northern Ireland has moved up to 16 in the European Coefficients (started at around 50 initially), only one place away from getting a second Champions League spot - can I do it next season?

Team Summary / Star Players

Still trying to strengthen my team, I brought in 14 more signings, all free signings, and whilst most of them were didn't make too much of an impression on the first team, one in particular was a standout player, and managed to set all sorts of records in his debut season in Dunloy after being let go by Tottenham

Moses Jagne: The 23 year old English / Gambian striker was by far the signing of the season, with double figures for all his physical, most of his mental, and half of his technical attributes - whilst it might not sounds like much in the EPL, it's unheard of in Northern Ireland! Whilst he was often rested during the season, he still managed an amazing 37 goals, 15 assists, 11 MoM and average rating of 7.48 over 53 games, breaking varous records for both Dunloy and the N.I. Premier Division - what a dream debut season!

Despite the above, Jagne was surprisingly not voted the Premier Division player of the season - that honour, for the 3rd season in a row, went to 25 year old English winger Jamie Newell

Jamie Newell: Whilst his stats might not be as impressive as those of Jagne, his results are just as impressive, managing 10 goals and an impressive 24 assists at 7.48 - at 25 is one of the more experienced players, and has drawn interest from Preston, Hearts and Hibernain, although thankfully he still enjoys playing for the club

Once again Europe resulted in a nice $10.6M profit, bringing the total balance to $34.6M! Also, in addition to more improvements to the youth and training facilities, the board finally approved increasing the capacity of the 625 seater stadium - although unfortunatly this was cancelled due by the local council

Twellman24 - european games only allow seated attendance, hence your attendance is only as many seats as you have. Your attendance will be 550 until you put more seats in, its not a bug or the rest not showing up.

This was a really disappointing season as the team were incredibly inconsistant with a run of good results followed by a worse run of bad results. Finished in the same position as the last 2 years but with less points. Went out in the first round of the cup to a lower league team again.

Kept the same team at the start of the season so no gelling was needed but brought in a lot of players midseason when this didn't work.
No standout player although this player improved as the year went on, training him from scratch to be a right midfielder.
Ghazouani became the first player to pass ten goals in a season.

The signings made last season paid off as an indifferent start was followed by a run of wins to take the team up to 2nd and only off 1st on GD by the time the midwinter break came. This came in spite of a rash of injuries, all 2-3 month ones to my strikers and midfielders and 6 months to my left midfielder.
The results after the break were very mixed as the team struggled but luckily all the other teams did as well. I went into the last game ahead knowing i only had to win, in the end i drew but the 2 teams behind both lost. Made it to the 2nd Rd in the cup where i was thrashed at home 4-1 by Division 1 Fenencvaros.
Promotion was gained with the only downside that i'm now 500K in the red having kept within my wage budget and spent only 3K on transfers.

A new midfield pairing made a huge difference with sunzu not playing much due to being injured, wanting to leave and generally upsetting a lot of my squad (no other team wanted to buy him though even for 1K).Kila was a rock at the back and all my strikers chipped in, Voros avoiding injury to be top scorer.

Twellman24 - european games only allow seated attendance, hence your attendance is only as many seats as you have. Your attendance will be 550 until you put more seats in, its not a bug or the rest not showing up.

Well, thanks for that. I have never had a domestic attendance of 550 or more, so I couldn't tell. I guess we better make some (lots) more money so we can expand or build a new stadium.

My stadium has no seating at all, so should i get into europe i'm guessing home games will be empty

LOL that'd be hilarious! So much for home field advantage!

I'm definitely feeling the struggle to keep up with four competitions; League, Loosemores Cup, Welsh Cup and Euro Cup. We're fifth with 11 points out of 21, 8 away from the lead. I hope we catch up before we're too far away.

Sometimes FM gets on my nerves. I come up with a very defensive tactic, train them on it for months, and emphasize on the defensive positioning for the week prvious to our game at Olympiakos...to then get score 25 seconds in. Whatever.

Right then that's 3 seasons completed and I havent had time to write a report. I will post the updates tomorrow and let you all know how the mighty Skjetten are fairing!

Congrats to all who've done well in the challenge and welcome to the new guys.
Gundo- Sorry for not being so active this time around, been a bit busy! Never fear I shall return glory to Skjetten and make it 4 completions in 4!!!!

Lost 4-3 at Olympiakos, what a game. They only scored the winner on the 88th minute. We are now third, but tied on points with Vitesse and Olympiakos, at 3. We do have two out of the last three games at home, so we could put up a fight

We beat Vitesse 1-2 away (still don't know how that happened)...but of course, Villarreal lost, at home, 0-1 to Olympiakos, and we're still third with seven points. The good news is that in our European group stages debut, we won't finish last. Bad news is, we have to beat Villarreal at our stadium and hope that Olympiakos does not do the same against Vitesse home. Right.

Amazing result. We beat Villarreal at home 2-0, incredibly; even more after that 7-0 at Vila-real. Even that way, Olympiakos beat Vitesse 4-0 and goes through. It makes me rage when I think about that 4-3 goal against the Greek when two injured left us with nine for ten minutes.

Anyway, it could have been amazing, but going away on direct results is already crazy. Having beaten Vitesse twice and Villarreal once was major for this club, and now I hope that translates into a better league and club rating.

Now, to see what we can do in the league; 6th nine points away with 7 games until the playoffs. We'll see.